Promises Keep (The Promise Series)

by Sarah McCarty

  Doc stared after his wife. His hands clutched his worn black hat against his chest. A soft smile curved his formerly angry mouth.

  “It’s easy to see why Dorothy was considered the belle of Charleston,” Cougar drawled.

  “Yes.” Doc straightened his hat and slapped it against his thigh. “And one of these days, she’s not going to be able to distract me so easily with that sweet-talking trick of hers.”

  “Just give it another twenty years, Doc,” Cougar said grabbing his clothes off the chair. “You’ll eventually work up to immunity.”

  “Not so sure I want to, son.” Doc seemed to notice Cougar’s attire for the first time. His hands landed back on his hips. A jerk of his chin indicated his son’s state of undress. “Any particular reason you’ve taken to wearing the bed linens?”

  From where she sat, Mara had an excellent view of Cougar’s back. The muscles over his shoulder blades tensed, causing the scar on the left one to bunch. Fascinating.

  “Yeah,” Cougar drawled.

  “And while we’re on the subject,” Doc continued with easygoing relentlessness. “What exactly are you doing in such a state in the bedroom of a young lady under my protection?”

  Mara wanted to hear the answer to that question herself.

  “It’s not what you think,” Cougar hedged.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “For God’s sake, Doc. I’m a grown man.”

  “Who is, at present, under my roof in extremely questionable circumstances.”

  “We’re getting married,” Cougar bit off quickly.

  “Oh no, we’re not!” Mara countered just as quickly. She struggled to get into a sitting position. If it was the last thing she did, someone was going to listen to her.

  “Don’t get your feathers in an uproar, missy,” Doc said, stepping around Cougar, placing his hand on Mara’s shoulder and pressing her back against the mattress. “I’ve got a fair idea what’s going on here.”

  “Nothing’s going on that shouldn’t,” Cougar muttered, turning to face Doc.

  “Uh-huh.” Doc was only half Cougar’s size. The only comparison that came to Mara’s mind was a banty rooster facing down a mountain lion, but it was clear who was in charge by the censure in Doc’s tone, and the deference in Cougar’s posture.

  “You trying to tell me, son,” the older man asked, “that you didn’t mean for us to come back and find you in a rather compromising position?”

  “Well…”

  “A simple yes or no will do.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Doc. The woman’s in no condition for tomfoolery!”

  “That wasn’t what I asked you.” Doc took his hand off Mara’s shoulder to place it back on his hip. “Did you or did you not arrange for your mother, the Reverend Swanson, and myself to come back and find you and Miss Kincaid in a compromising position?”

  Mara shot Doc a horrified look. They’d brought a Reverend back with them?

  “The woman won’t listen to reason,” Cougar offered his father by way of explanation.

  “So you thought to force the issue.” Doc shook his head. “There are some traits, son, I wish you hadn’t picked up from your mother.”

  Cougar threw up his hands. “What would you have me do?”

  His quilt slipped, following the sweep of chiseled muscle across his abdomen, sliding down over his hipbones and revealing a lightly furred expanse before his desperate grab preserved his decency. He looked impossibly huge and male as he asked, “Send her back to that hellhole?”

  Doc shook his head. “No one wants that.” He eyed Cougar’s covering. “Before you slip totally into decadence, I suggest you retire to another room and get dressed.”

  Cougar seemed loath to leave on such a note. “She’s going to marry me, Doc.”

  Before Doc could argue the point, a tall blond man stepped into the doorway. As he leaned against the doorjamb he said, “Cougar’s got a point, Doc. Even if we don’t say a word about last night—”

  “Nothing happened last night!” Mara pointed out again.

  All she got for her vehemence was a patient nod from the man before he continued, “The story of what happened at Cecile’s is all over the territory. Everyone in Cattle Crossing knows she left with Cougar and didn’t come back. It won’t take long for the story to spread to Cheyenne. Without the protection of a man’s name…” He shook his head, his doubt clear. He shrugged. “And even married, I’m not sure.”

  “No one will dare touch her once she has the protection of my name,” Cougar stated with complete assurance.

  As if Cougar didn’t exist, the blond man tipped his hat at Mara. “I’m Reverend Brad Swanson, Ma’am.”

  She was now having formal introductions in the bedroom. The morning was getting even more bizarre, Mara decided as she nodded back. “Mara Kincaid.”

  “Soon to be McKinnely,” Cougar inserted.

  Mara rolled her eyes. “Your saying it won’t make it happen. I’m not marrying anyone.”

  The Reverend sighed. “Well, there goes my second solution.”

  Doc looked at the man in surprise. “You planning on casting your hat into the ring, Swanson?”

  Mara stared at the Reverend in shock as he shrugged. “From what Dorothy’s told me, Miss Kincaid is a brave, honorable woman. With your permission, I’d like to pay her court to see if we’d suit.”

  “She’s not for you.” Cougar stepped into Mara’s line of sight. It was both a protective and a possessive gesture.

  The Reverend circumvented him simply by stepping to the left. The smile he tossed Cougar was congenial. “That’s not for you to say.”

  Cougar took another step toward the Reverend. His bare feet made no noise as he crossed the floor. “The hell it isn’t.”

  The Reverend’s smile broadened to a taunt as he drew up from the door. Mara realized he was roughly Cougar’s age and size as he returned just as congenially, “The hell it is.”

  “In case anybody is interested,” Mara interjected dryly from her bed. “You’re arguing over nothing.”

  “You heard the woman.” Doc stepped between the two giants and thumped them on the chest with the palms of his hands. “As neither one of you is impressing the heck out of our guest, why don’t you hightail it out of here so I can examine her?”

  The Reverend nodded to Mara. “Miss Kincaid. I hope to have the pleasure of your company at breakfast.”

  Mara could feel the beginnings of a headache starting. And her stomach was churning again. She pinched the bridge of her nose between her forefinger and thumb and pressed her hand against her abdomen “At the moment, I’m not entertaining breakfast invitations.”

  And she wouldn’t ever be, as long as he had anything to say about it, Cougar decided. “Find your own woman, Reverend.”

  “What makes you think I haven’t already done so?” Reverend Swanson asked, cocking his eyebrow at Cougar in a manner that made Cougar set his teeth against a growl. Brad caught Mara’s hand in his.

  “You can call me Brad.”

  Cougar saw the tug Mara gave her hand. He saw Brad’s fingers tighten imperceptibly. Saw the slow smile spread across his face as he added in a voice as smooth as cream, “And maybe put me on your dance card at next month’s social?”

  The man was openly flirting. With his woman. Something wild and savage rose in Cougar, like when he was a kid and he’d managed to scavenge something decent to eat after days of nothing but hunger pangs. It increased when he saw Mara’s chin come up and heard the slight hitch in her breath. Swanson’s flirting was scaring her.

  Cougar knocked Swanson’s arm aside. “Get your hands off her.”

  “I was only…”

  Cougar stepped back and to the side until he was between Swanson and Mara. “You’ve said all you’re going to.”

  “The hell you say!” Brad growled.

  “Nice talk for a Reverend,” Cougar mocked, shielding Mara with his body, tamping down his unreasoning anger.

  “Big talk
for a gunslinger,” Swanson retaliated.

  “Lawman,” Cougar corrected.

  “Seems to me there’s a mighty fine line between the two.”

  “Not for me.”

  “That’s enough out of both of you.” Doc countered in his harsh growl. He shook his head. “Like two tomcats on the prowl.” He pushed Cougar aside. “If Miss Kincaid had any sense, she wouldn’t entertain the thought of either of you.”

  “I’m not.”

  Cougar kept Mara in his side vision while he kept Brad in front of him. “You are,” he tossed over his shoulder.

  She carefully folded her arms across her chest. “Not.”

  Doc’s elbow in his gut shut Cougar up. He settled for hitching up his quilt and glaring at Brad who bared his teeth at him.

  “Let’s take a look at that cut, eh Mara?” Doc said, as he tilted her head forward. Her long hair fell over her shoulder and spilled onto the white sheets, as Doc pressed her chin to her chest. “And you pay no mind to those two yahoos,” he glanced up from inspecting Mara’s stitches. “They’re going out to see if Dorothy needs any help before breakfast.”

  The look in Doc’s eyes brooked no refusal. Swanson left the room, but Cougar wasn’t going anywhere. “How’s it look?”

  “Didn’t I tell you to leave?” Doc asked.

  “Yeah.” The pants draped over Cougar’s arm swung out as he indicated the cut Doc had stitched. “How’s it look?”

  “No sign of infection.” Doc sat on the edge of the bed and held his finger in front of Mara’s face. “Follow my finger now without moving your head.”

  Cougar had to duck down to see over Doc’s shoulder how her eyes were tracking.

  He stopped when he realized both Doc and Mara were staring at him.

  “You’re blocking my light,” Doc snapped.

  “Sorry.”

  “That line would be more believable if you looked it,” Doc rasped. “Why don’t you get out of here and find a way to make yourself useful?”

  Mara shot Cougar a smile so sweet, his back teeth ached as she suggested, “Like digging out the privy?”

  Cougar shot her an equally sweet smile. “We have a water closet. No digging necessary.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Not really,” Cougar argued. “This way, we’ve got plenty of time to talk.”

  “We don’t have anything to talk about.”

  “See. Right there is one of the things needing discussing.”

  Doc stood and Cougar had an unhampered view of Mara’s expression. About the only thing she looked ready to discuss was his castration.

  Doc cleared his throat. Cougar glanced down. Doc looked pointedly at the clothes in Cougar’s hand. “I’d suggest you put those on, son, before you plead your case. Women tend to pay more heed to a man when he at least pretends to be civilized.”

  Cougar felt that slow creep of heat up his neck as Doc turned to leave the room. Damn! The man could reduce him to the age of knee pants and hard candy with just a few chosen words.

  “You’ve got five minutes,” Doc warned as he left the room.

  Cougar closed the door and turned around. Mara was leaning against the headboard, her arms wrapped around her middle, her mouth set in lines of resignation. From the way she stared sightlessly at the far wall, he knew it wasn’t the cabbage rose print paper that had her attention. Bottom line, she couldn’t have been further away from him than if a canyon yawned between. Suddenly, his dismissal of Doc seemed the height of stupidity. He’d never been long on words and now he’d set himself up to talk a woman round to reason?

  He dragged his shirt on, not bothering with the buttons as he stared at Mara, debating his best approach. As he stared, the sleeve of the gown did a slow slide off her shoulder. Every inch of flesh it exposed heightened the image of fragility.

  She looked so damned defenseless in the oversized thing that he had the sudden urge to sweep her up and carry her high into the mountains where no other man could find her. Especially that sweet-talking, no-holier-than-he-had-to-be Reverend.

  Beneath the quilt, he pulled on his buckskin pants. He tossed the bulky lump of quilt onto the foot of the bed when he was done. Not by a blink of an eyelid did Mara let on that she’d noticed the movement or even that he was still in the room. He ran his hands through his hair. His finger snagged on a snarl. He tugged it out and took two steps to the bed. One of his five minutes was already gone and he hadn’t accomplished anything more than establishing he didn’t know a darned thing about women. After debating the merits of standing or sitting, he opted for the side of the bed as his perch.

  “You ready to talk yet?” he asked and immediately winced. It wasn’t the best of opening gambits. He braced himself for her retort, the perverse part of him actually anticipating it. He knew from the last two months that Mara had a wicked sense of humor and a sharp tongue. He’d grown fond of seeing her in action.

  The one thing he hadn’t expected was for her not to react at all. Instead of coming at him, she just sat as she was, pretending he didn’t exist. She looked so alone. Almost lost.

  The lace window curtains fluttered as a breeze wandered through. A strand of hair blew across her cheek. He brushed it away. It seemed natural from there to let his hand slide down, to follow the bend of her shoulder until it slid over the soft cotton of her nightdress and down over her back. He might have imagined she leaned toward him. Then again, he might not have because when he tested his theory by tugging, she put up no resistance.

  He drew her across the mattress until she rested against his chest. The silky swathe of her hair intertwined with the curling hair on his chest. It tickled. He moved the strands aside, before rubbing his hands up and down her arms, the calluses on his palms dragging on the goose bumps she couldn’t hide.

  “Are you going to talk to me, Angel?”

  There was a long silence. She took a deep breath. He waited. It shuddered back out. She took another deep breath. Again he waited. This time, he wasn’t disappointed. She didn’t look at him, but she at least found her voice.

  “You aren’t going away, are you?” she whispered.

  “No.”

  She seemed to take that hard, the little starch left in her backbone leaking out.

  “The others won’t go away either, will they?”

  “What others?”

  “The others out there.”

  He assumed she didn’t mean just the Reverend by the all inclusive gesture she made.

  “You want the truth or a lie dressed up pretty?”

  She sat up, pushing slightly away from him. “Start with the lie.”

  His bark of laughter took him by surprise. “You serious?”

  Her sigh pushed his hand on her back against the headboard.

  “No. I don’t need to hear a lie.”

  “You ready to accept you need to marry me?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  She shook her head, “I don’t want to marry anyone.”

  “You can’t go on as you are.”

  “I know.”

  “In that case,” he pressed, “you need to marry. Once you have the protection of my name, no man would dare even look at you crosswise.”

  It must be nice to possess that much self-confidence, Mara thought. To be so convinced the world held you in such awe and respect that they wouldn’t dare say you nay. Her confidence had taken quite a beating lately. There had been a time when she’d thought herself invulnerable, but that illusion had been ruthlessly ripped from her. She sighed. “I need to think on this.”

  “What’s there to think about?”

  “Not much,” Mara acknowledged as Cougar’s hand slid whisper soft down her spine. “There’s no going back is there?”

  That was hard to accept, that she had no choice but to go forward. That what she had been was gone. That this was all that was left, and on this she had to base her choices. “Even if I could go back home, it wouldn’t be the same, would it?”


  Cougar’s sigh ruffled the hair on the top of her head.

  “No.”

  She reached up to smooth the hairs flat, bumped her fingers on the prickly beard on his chin, and quickly dropped her hand back to her lap. “It isn’t fair.”

  “Life seldom is.”

  That was the truth. She thought of her alternatives and knew they were few. She didn’t kid herself. In the time it took to spit, the story of where she’d spent the night would be added to her reputation. Every male around would consider her fair game from here on out. While she could hold off a few, the ones with scruples, there were enough men like the one yesterday who would succeed. She shuddered at the thought.

  Mara dropped her gaze to the quilt. The stitches binding the squares were so tiny and intricate. Strong despite their size. Put into the quilt one at a time, with thought and precision. The way she wanted to rebuild her life.

  She took a breath to steady her nerves before asking, “You really want to marry me?”

  “Yes.”

  The matter-of-factness of his reply when she’d been expecting vehemence startled her into looking up. His gaze was steady. Confident. Sincere.

  “What kind of marriage do you think this will be?”

  “The best I can make it.”

  It wasn’t lost on her that he didn’t think he required her cooperation. “Would you be willing to forego…” How did one address these things? He took the matter out of her hands.

  “You wanting to know if I’ll stay out of your bed?”

  She couldn’t look at him. “Yes.”

  “No.”

  That was blunt. She risked a quick glance at his face and immediately dropped her gaze back to the quilt. His expression had been hard. Resolute. Not open for negotiations but she had to try. “Maybe just until we get to know one another?”

  “No.”

  “Well, why not? Surely you see the sense in getting to know one another.”

  The slight shift of his head sent his thick black hair sliding over his shoulder. “We’ll either start as we mean to go on or we won’t start at all.”

  Which left her between a rock and a hard place. He was the devil she knew, but he was a hard, dangerous, uncompromising man. To the point that she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to hold her own with him. But he was an honest man, not given to games. She’d always know where she stood with him. That counted for a lot. She just wasn’t sure it was enough.